refused to be irked by the dry amusement in his voice. ‘I would have spent ten thousand dollars to keep Rambo alive! Now, if you don’t mind, I have to feed him or he’ll be a pain later on. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ she threw at him snakily.
He smiled a wry smile. ‘Glad to see that some things about you haven’t changed. Here,’ he said, and handed the cat over. ‘He’s all yours. By the way, after you’ve fed him, is there a chance of some coffee? You pointed the kitchen out to me yesterday.’
Only yesterday? Laura thought with amazement as she carried Rambo down to the kitchen. One short day and so much had changed. The twice-bitten-forever-shy Laura of yesterday would have worried herself sick over where her affair with Ryan was heading. This morning’s Laura had still been a little concerned.
The Laura who’d just had wild but fantastic sex up against a wall now looked at things very differently. No longer was she going to worry about falling in love with Ryan and ending up with another broken heart. She was going to embrace the lust which was still raging within her and live for the heat of the moment. The long-term future could go hang itself. The only future she cared about was the immediate future. Which was tonight.
Her heartbeat quickened as she realised that she would soon be back in bed with Ryan. Back in his arms, back experiencing the most incredible pleasure. She could not wait to be totally naked with him once more. To have him touch her everywhere. To touch him everywhere as well. Her head swirled at the thought of going down on him. Not reluctantly, but avidly. And certainly not because of some silly idea of sacrificial love. She wanted to feel that power which he’d described to her last night, wanted to make him lose control, all because of her.
It was a heady thought. Heady, intoxicating and thrilling.
Rambo’s impatient miaow snapped her back to the present.
‘You wouldn’t understand, Rambo,’ she muttered as she went about getting him the special treat she always fed him when she wanted him to settle. ‘You’ve been de-sexed. Now, here, eat up. After which I want you to be a good boy and don’t bother me for the rest of the night.’
‘I hope you’re not talking about me,’ Ryan said as he strode into the kitchen, his beautiful blue eyes glittering with amusement. ‘Because I don’t intend to be good. And I am going to bother you. But not till I’ve had some coffee. Strong coffee. I suggest you have some as well; don’t want you falling asleep on me.’ He glanced around. ‘I like your kitchen. The wood’s a nice colour.’
‘It’s oak,’ Laura said as she dropped the empty tin in the garbage. ‘Real oak.’
‘It’s classy,’ he said, and pulled out one of the two wooden stools which fronted the small breakfast bar. ‘Like you,’ he added.
Laura wasn’t sure what to say to such a compliment, so she settled for a simple, ‘Thank you,’ before turning away from him to put the kettle on and get everything ready for coffee.
‘I only have instant, I’m afraid,’ she said as she busied herself with the mugs.
‘No problem; I’m not fussy. Just make it black and strong, with no sugar.’
‘I don’t know how you can bear drinking coffee without milk and sugar.’
‘I learned when I had no milk and sugar,’ he returned dryly.
She frowned as she turned back to face him. ‘Were you really that poor once?’
‘You have no idea.’
‘No,’ she agreed thoughtfully. ‘I guess I haven’t. I may have been unhappy as a teenager but I was never poor. I certainly never went hungry. That must have been horrible.’
Ryan shrugged, as though he no longer thought about it. Or cared. ‘It made me appreciate things once I could afford them. And it made me work hard so that I could afford them. But enough of such talk. I never like talking about the past. It’s a waste of time.’
‘But the past is what makes you what you are today,’ Laura said, curious now to find out more about him. She realised that he’d revealed only scant details about his early life to her family yesterday. Though Gran had picked up on the fact that his childhood couldn’t have been easy.
‘Yes I do know that, Laura,’ he replied a little impatiently. ‘But I don’t subscribe to analysis of any kind. It does a person no good at all to rake over the past, especially when the things they’re raking over are usually wretched and made them miserable. It just sets off old problems again. Far better to put things behind you and move on.’
Laura almost said that was much easier said than done but decided to let the matter drop. She didn’t want to say or do anything to spoil the rest of the evening.
‘Speaking of moving on,’ he added dryly. ‘So come with me, woman. Bed awaits.’
LAURA still fell asleep, but only after a lengthy sexual marathon where they made love over and over and over, in every position Ryan knew, including up against the wall again, though in the shower this time and with Laura facing the wall.
He didn’t succumb to sleep, however, despite feeling drained. His mind would not let him rest, plaguing him with the things Laura had said earlier about how much the past influenced the present, and the person one eventually became. As he’d already told Laura, he did actually know that. Ryan understood full well why he avoided love and marriage. Why he avoided emotional involvement of any kind with the opposite sex.
He’d always believed that nothing would ever change that. That no woman alive was capable of unlocking the iron cage he’d fused shut around his heart the day he’d come home from school and found his mother dead on the floor and his father curled up in a corner, sobbing that he hadn’t meant to do it, that he loved her.
Ryan had lived a long time since that day—twenty-five years to be exact. Not once in all that time had a woman touched his heart, let alone his soul.
Until now …
Was this love he was finally feeling? He wondered as he frowned down at Laura’s sleeping form.
He wasn’t sure, since he didn’t know what romantic love felt like. All he knew was that sex with Laura was different from anything he’d experienced before. He could not seem to get enough of her. Usually, his desire lessened sharply after a couple of times, his days of wanting sex all night long a thing of the past. Not so with Laura. Already he wanted to feel that special feeling again, the one which jolted him every time he entered her, then grew in intensity, culminating in waves of rapture. He’d never felt anything like it. Hell on earth—would he never be satisfied?
This can’t be love, he decided as he rolled over and stared down at her naked bottom with its peach-like buttocks. True love would be less sexually driven. It was still just lust. A more obsessive form than usual, but just lust all the same. Give it time and these cravings would fade.
But not yet, he accepted when he reached out to touch her.
Laura woke to the delicious sensation of Ryan stroking her back. She was lying face down, on the bed,
